Every marketing tactic gets more scrutiny when budgets face the severity
of a struggling economy. Marketers are increasingly responding to the
accountability found in digital marketing, placing their budget toward
efforts that they can clearly measure against. Put SEO under this
microscope, and it consistently delivers.

Twitter, which allows you to broadcast text messages up to 140 characters in length, is fast becoming the place where a lot of information is being shared online.

Here a list of the people and organizations to consider following on Twitter if you want to keep your finger on the pulse of small businesses. In other words, who are the people on Twitter who regularly provide information by, about and for small businesses?

The website redesign was part of an overall branding effort. The organization is looking to recruit more members for their mission of limiting the increase in taxes and spending to within the rate of inflation and stopping the abuse of power by government officials throughout Ohio.

A trigger is a device that automatically executes a response to a
certain event. In marketing, triggers are used to automatically deliver
targeted messages, offers, recommendations or other treatments to
customers on an individual basis at the most optimal point in time,
based on any number of factors.

Blogging is as varied in its applications as using the telephone or taking a picture. The tool doesn’t predict the output. You might be using your blog to post recipes, or to inform the local community about information you find elsewhere on the web. Maybe you’re just trying your hand at writing, and the web is as good a place as any.

If you’re looking to go beyond that, however, you’ll need to take steps to improve your blog from at least five different perspectives. In 50 Ways to Take Your Blog to the Next Level, learn how you should consider your goal, your design, your content, how you promote it, and the business aspects of your blog

Blogging is one of the most effective ways to brand your business. And, this is really what a blog is for.

Your corporate blog can be used to talk to you audiences about what’s happening in your business. So you can use your blog to inform them about issues, what’s going on with your company, and new products and services your company offers.

Tell Stories That Excite Your Clients There are three types of stories you should be writing:

* Success Stories

* Problem Solution Stories

* Testimonials

These prove to be the most effective because they demonstrate several concerns readers of you blog are looking for — solutions.

Success Stories. When one of your clients has some measurable success with a product or service you sold them, blog about it. This shows prospects your wares have value.

Problem Solution Stories. These are your typical case studies, where you explain a problem one of your clients had, the steps you took to solve it, and the tools used. Included is an explanation of the results your solution produced. This demonstrates value to prospects experiencing similar issues.

Testimonials. If your clients and customers are happy and tell you about it. Capture that in words. Prospects put more trust in what others say about your company.

Besides using these three story types to drive business to you website and customers into your business, use your corporate blog to inform your audience about trends affecting your industry and potentially your customers.

Ad-ology released a new study this week. In it the data is telling:

* 26% of small businesses plan to spend more on online and direct advertising.

* 60% plan to spend about the same from last year in 2009.

With blogging you have the opportunity to tell stories of success. You have a platform to show your company has that been-there-done-that experience, and you have the opportunity to collect and publish testimonials, vastly increasing word-of-mouth and referral rates to your company.